


First Loves Never Last

by dreamofroses



Category: A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel, French Revolution RPF
Genre: Boarding School, First Love, First Time, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-11 00:50:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15303789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamofroses/pseuds/dreamofroses
Summary: Camille is full of outlandishly foolish ideas, but maybe he's just trying to catch Maximilien's attention. Set at Louis le Grand in approximately 1776. The warning is because Camille is only 16.





	First Loves Never Last

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been in my mind for a while, ever since I read the chapter in A Place of Greater Safety about Camille and Maxime's school days. It's my first time writing an explicit story, so be kind. :)

Maximilien didn’t quite remember when it happened, but he’d found himself in the lamentable position of being Camille’s oft ignored conscience. It had gotten to the point where, just by hearing the way Camille drew breath to speak, he knew without looking up from his book that his friend was about to say something either incredibly stupid or incredibly reckless.

“Camille, no.” He turned the page.

Camille grunted and pouted. “You didn’t even listen to what I was going to say.”

Maximilien sighed and looked up at Camille through the thick glasses that made his eyes look very large and very green. “If it is about hiding our books in the professors’ bedrooms so that they will be too embarrassed to do anything about it, I told you it will not work.”

Camille smiled reminiscently at his old idea. “That was a brilliant idea…but, no, this one is new and it is perfect.”

“It’s probably against the rules.”

Camille sighed at how tedious Maximilien could be and sat down on the bench next to him. “Not any more than having the books in the first place.”

Maximilien snapped his book shut, a textbook not one of the forbidden ones they were talking about, and carefully unhooked his glassed from behind his ears. “Enlighten me,” he said.

“You know the rich boys, the ones with money coming out their ears?” Camille asked. “Well, I found that they’ve been keeping a room in the city for taking girls to. They split the rent and split the time.”

“And?”

“Well, they’re dumb as rocks, right? So, I told them that I’d do whatever schoolwork they needed me to in order to get a slot of time in the room.”

“Camille.”

“It’s the perfect place to store our books.”

“That is a horrible idea. If you get caught, you’ll be in trouble for the books, sneaking out, _and_ doing other people’s schoolwork.”

“Well, the idea is to not get caught.”

“That’s always the idea, but the more rules you break, the more difficult that gets.”

Camille stood up in a snit. “Then keep hiding your books under your bed like an idiot. I already did the work, so I’m going. If you change your tiny mind, I’ll be at the front gate an hour after lights out.” He left.

Maximilien sighed. Camille was popular. He had plenty of friends and cronies to help him enact his maddening schemes and yet he always chose to tell his plans to Maximilien.

Maximilien wasn’t like Camille. He didn’t have wild schemes or crazy ideas or even many friends. Camille was probably the only person who actively sought him out besides teachers. That made him important, more important that Camille would ever know, important enough that Maximilien would get up an hour after curfew to stop his friend from doing something that would jeopardize his chances of graduating from one of the best schools in the country.

***

Camille was alone. That surprised Maximilien. Usually, Camille had a crony or two behind him to follow along with his schemes. Maybe that would make it easier to take him back inside.

“Maxime!” Camille called softly, his grin audible in his voice. “You…you c…you came.” Perhaps he realized the danger he was putting himself in because his stammer sparked for a moment, but then he brightened and it faded into the near imperceptibility of lengthened vowels and uneven pauses between words. “You finally decided I was right! Do you have the books?”

“No, Camille, you have to come back inside before this gets out of hand,” Maximilien said. “You don’t want to do anything that you’ll regret.”

“If I don’t do this, I’ll regret it,” Camille answered.

“They’re just books,” Maximilien told him gently.

Camille turned and took off running.

“Camille!” Maximilien called after him as loudly as he dared. He looked over his shoulder at the shadows of Louis le Grand, then back in the direction where Camille was disappearing. “Damn it.” He couldn’t let his only real friend get himself into this kind of trouble alone, so even though he knew Camille was faster, he ran after him.

Camille stayed out of reach but in sight through the winding streets of Paris, until he stopped in front of a building. Maximilien caught up at last, bent and panting.

“Maxime…” Camille said. He paused and took a deep breath before continuing, “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to stay safely at school.”

Maximilien took one more shuddering breath and straightened. “Camille Desmoulins, you can be a real asshole sometimes.”

“As long as we’re here,” Camille continued, ignoring what Maximilien said, “we should drop off the books.”

“And then we’ll go right back?” Maximilien asked.

“Absolutely.”

Camille went to the door and unlocked it, then climbed the stairs to the second floor and unlocked that, Maximilien right behind him. The room was black as pitch, but the boys said there would be a striker and a candle on the table beside the door. Camille felt around and eventually laid hands on the familiar objects. He lit the candle and looked around. Not much could be seen by the light of a single candle, but get a fire in the hearth and the place would be quite homey. Camille set about doing just that.

“Camille…” Maximilien said behind him. “Where are the books?”

“Huh?” Camille was distracted by the fireplace.

“You don’t have a satchel or anything to carry them in. Where are the books?”

“Oh, that,” Camille said. “I don’t have them.”

“You…what?”

“I forgot them.”

Maximilien could find no words, so he sighed through his teeth.

Camille lit the fire and stood up, but didn’t turn around to face Maximilien. “On purpose,” he said. “I forgot them on purpose. I never meant to bring them.”

“Then why come here?” Maximilien asked. Wait, no. That was obvious. The other boys brought girls here, so Camille must want to do the same. “Why tell me you were coming here? Why _lie_?”

Camille gripped the mantlepiece. “I…” He stopped and said nothing for several interminable moments. “I was hoping you would follow me,” he said very softly.

Maximilien wanted to be angry with Camille but there was something just so pathetic about the way he delivered that line that Maximilien could not work up the righteous fury he wanted. He was left with a stupid sounding, “Why?”

“Be…be… _because_ …because I…wanted to…to…to… _tell_ you something a, a, and I couldn’t…do it at… _school_.”

There was something off about the way Camille said the last word that sounded off and it wasn’t just that this was the worst he had stammered since one of the professors had caught him daydreaming in class and, after humiliating him for several minutes, made him recite one of their readings for the class as an impromptu punishment.

Maximilien approached him cautiously and Camille turned slightly away. “Camille, are you…crying?”

Oh, please, no. God in Heaven, no. Maximilien had two younger sisters back home who were prone to crying at the drop of a hat for no perceptible reason whatsoever and he’d gotten used to occasionally being the one forced to comfort them, but he had never grown comfortable around tears. And what was he supposed to do with Camille? How was one supposed to console a friend, a classmate? Even his sisters had different ways they preferred to be comforted. Charlotte wanted to be asked what was wrong, so she could rant about it until she felt better. Henriette just needed a reassuring arm around her and a shoulder to lay her head on. Could he adapt either of those two methods for Camille?

Hesitantly, Maximilien placed his hand on Camille’s shoulder. He pulled his handkerchief out of his jacket and handed it to his friend. Their fingers touched for a moment.

“I’m in love with you, Maxime,” Camille said.

For a moment, Maximilien just blinked at Camille in utter incomprehension. Then he let go of Camille’s shoulder and staggered over to a chair, into which he fell down under the weight of such a confession.

“It must disgust you to be thought of like that by another man,” Camille said. “I’m sorry I dragged you all the way out here to tell you that because I was too much of a coward to do it where I might be overheard.”

Maximilien thought for a moment. Did it disgust him? He was peeved that Camille had lied but was he disgusted? No, if anything he was curious.

“Why me?” he asked.

Camille sighed. “I…I…I don’t know. It’s just…If I had to say…you…you take me seriously and you care. You care if…if…if I’m going to get hurt or…if I get in trouble…or if I’m sick.”

“Of course I care,” Maximilien said. “I’m your friend.”

“My other friends don’t care. And, also, you…you…you’re…sexy.”

Maximilien blinked at Camille, then laughed. “Sexy?”

“Yes. Your eyes are m…mesmerizing and you have amazing calves.”

“You look at my calves?”

“Every chance I get,” Camille said. “And sometimes I have an overwhelming desire to touch your ass…but I don’t because that would be weird.”

Maximilien imagined Camille coming up to him one day and grabbing his rear with no context. “Weird,” he said. “Yes. Do you want to touch my ass right now?”

Camille considered. “It’s hard to say,” he said. “I’m a little more concerned with you hating me forever at the moment.”

“I don’t hate you, Camille,” Maximilien said, following it immediately with, “Why now?”

The first statement was too big for Camille to process in such a short time, so he skipped right to the question. “Well, in the summer we’ll both be going home and then, when we come back, you’ll be at university. It felt like something was ending and…and I just wanted to tell you before then. And you’re probably wondering why tell you at all if it wasn’t going to end well but, even though I knew you’d reject me, there was a part of me that hoped…that hoped…”

“That I would say that I didn’t hate you?” Maximilien supplied.

“Yes.”

“Like I just said?”

Camille turned bright red.

“But even if I don’t hate you, it doesn’t mean I’m in love with you,” Maximilien continued.

“No.”

“I might like you better than any of the girls I have ever met, but does that I mean I share your feelings?”

“Probably not,” Camille admitted with a sigh.

“Probably not,” Maximilien agreed.

“But do you really not hate me?” Camille asked.

“I really don’t hate you.”

At that, Camille began to tremble badly and Maximilien got up to gently guide him to a chair, but the moment he put his arm around Camille’s shoulders, his friend turned in toward him and clung to him, arms wrapped tightly around his chest.

“Can we just stay like this for a moment?” Camille asked.

“Yes,” Maximilien answered. He mechanically began to pat his friend’s back.

After a few seconds, he felt Camille’s hand slowly drift downward to clasp his left buttock.

“Camille,” he said firmly.

“I’m sorry,” Camille answered, removing his hand. “I just wanted to know what it felt like.”

“Like this?” Maximilien put his hand on Camille’s butt in retaliation. It was warm and firm in his hand. It felt nice…sexy.

Camille jumped about a foot. “W, w, w, w, w, w, w.” He couldn’t get past that first sound. His eyes were wide and full of a hurt that Maximilien hadn’t anticipated, hadn’t meant to cause.

Maximilien panicked. He couldn’t lose Camille, not like this, not at all. Wasn’t that why he had come out tonight, to save his only real friend so he wouldn’t have to lose him? Maybe if he had a week or a month or more, he could figure this out, what Camille was feeling, what he was feeling, and find an answer to save everything. But by then it would be too late. It had to be tonight and, tonight, this was the best he could come up with.

He took Camille’s face between his hands and pulled him in for a long, sweet, chaste kiss. Camille struggled against him and pushed him away.

“Don’t mock my feelings,” he said.

“I’m not,” Maximilien answered.

“You don’t feel the same way about me,” Camille said.

“I’m not even sure about that, so how can you possibly know?” Maximilien asked. “But, if you don’t want to find out, then I’ll be going back to the dormitory before anyone notices I’m gone. You can carry on without me.”

He turned to leave. Camille caught his hand and he turned back.

“Don’t go,” Camille said.

He gently tugged Maximilien’s arm and Maximilien came close to him again easily. He wrapped his arms around Maximilien’s neck and pulled him in for another kiss. It began gently but soon grew more forceful. Maximilien snaked his arms around the small of Camille’s back for support as Camille hung on his neck. Then, when Maximilien’s lips happened to be parted, Camille slipped his tongue in. Maximilien froze at this intrusion before forcing himself to relax. He explored Camille’s tongue with his own and savored the hitherto unknown flavor of someone else’s saliva. When Camille pulled his tongue back into his own mouth, Maximilien chased it. Camille sucked his tongue, sending shivers down Maximilien’s spine. When Camille released him, he returned the favor by catching Camille’s lower lip between his teeth. He bit it gently, and sucked on it, causing Camille to moan and grind his hard-on against Maximilien’s thigh.

Maximilien broke the kiss. “Camille?” he asked breathlessly.

Camille gasped and dropped his forehead on Maximilien’s shoulder. “I, I, I’m sorry,” he stammered. They stood like that for a moment, then Camille asked, “What now?”

What now, indeed? Maximilien was not unaffected by the kiss himself. If they were both in this state, it made reasonable sense to help each other, but should they do that? It was one thing to kiss—everyone had a mouth—it was quite another to touch another man’s sex. But it was Camille’s, which made it seem less wrong for some reason, and it had been surprisingly pleasurable to feel it against his thigh.

Maximilien dropped his left hand to Camille’s hip and brought his right hand to the front of Camille’s breeches and ran it slowly up the bulge that was Camille’s manhood. Camille shivered at the touch.

“Don’t,” he said, “unless you’re sure.”

“Have you ever known me to do anything of which I am not sure?” Maximilien asked.

Camille grabbed the front of Maximilien’s jacket and pulled him in for a hard, fast kiss, then dragged him over to the bed and pushed him down. He lay down beside Maximilien and threw his leg over Maximilien’s hips, pressing their erections together.

Maximilien rolled over so Camille was under him. He kissed his lips, his chin, paused to untie his ascot, then continued his way down Camille’s neck to the top of his waistcoat. As Maximilien busied himself with the buttons of Camille’s waistcoat, Camille pushed Maximilien’s jacket off his shoulders. Maximilien paused to fling off his jacket for Camille, then finished opening Camille’s waistcoat, revealing his shirt that was open halfway down his chest.

Camille ran his hands down Maximilien’s back to grab his ass while Maximilien kissed his way down Camille’s sternum. Camille’s hard, pink nipple caught his eye and he placed an errant kiss on it.

“Oh,” Camille gasped. “Do that again, but harder.”

So, Maximilien kissed the nipple again and sucked on it, catching it between his teeth before he let it go.

“Like that?” he asked.

“Mm.” Camille nodded, then sat up. “Now, it’s my turn.” He pushed Maximilien down on the bed.

Maximilien obligingly began untying his ascot, but Camille focused on the buttons of the fall front on Maximilien’s breeches instead of his waistcoat. Maximilien held his breath as Camille caught his bare cock in his hand and placed a delicate kiss on the shiny, pink head that emerged from his foreskin. Then he was gasping for breath, twining his hands deep in Camille’s hair as the younger man took his entire shaft in his mouth. He sucked and licked until Maximilien was near his breaking point, then stopped.

“I always wanted to try that,” he said, eyes bright and eager. “Was it good?”

Maximilien could make no intelligent sound, so he pulled Camille down next to him and kissed him deeply while he attacked the buttons of Camille’s breeches with numb fingers. He finished with the buttons and pulled the breeches completely off, catching his stockings and shoes on the way.

He turned his attention to Camille’s manhood. He licked it and darted his tongue into the slit in the head while he rolled Camille’s balls in his hand. He peppered feather light kisses down the shaft and very gently took one of Camille’s testicles in his mouth. Camille moaned as he swirled his tongue around and sucked on it lightly. Then, he tapped Maximilien’s shoulder until he let go.

“Enough,” Camille gasped. “Together…I want…to cum together…”

Maximilien crawled up the bed to kiss Camille again. Camille finished with the buttons on Maximilien’s breeches and then unfastened his waistcoat. They broke the kiss a moment to remove what remained of their clothing then came together again. Being of about the same build, they fit together perfectly, mouth against mouth, nipple against nipple, erection against erection.

They writhed against each other violently, legs twined, nipples clashing, and hands grasping anything and everything they could. They moaned against their teeth, sucking and nipping tongues and lips. Then, with a convulsion that shook through them at the same time, they came together, covering themselves and each other with their seed.

They lay spent in each other’s arms, shivering and gasping, for several moments. They then settled into a more comfortable embrace, Camille tucking his head in the space between Maximilien’s chin and shoulder.

“Does this mean that you accept my feelings?” Camille asked.

“I suppose it does,” Maximilien said. The implications of this would have to be analyzed later. “But we should clean up and return to the dormitory tonight before we are missed.” He bent his head down to kiss Camille’s forehead.

The pair would spend the next four years caught in the heat of this youthful passion, meeting whenever and wherever they could so long as they both were in Paris. But, from the moment Maximilien graduated from the Sorbonne, the connection was lost. No matter how Camille pleaded or reasoned, Maximilien was set on returning to Arras to be with his shattered family and there was no way for Camille to join him without raising suspicions. And when they were reunited nine years later by the Révolution… Well, they say first loves never last.


End file.
